“’Tis mad, yeah”
Turn openers in Irish and British English
The study of pragmatic markers has stressed their function of relating segments
of discourse one to the other, including the functions of response to previous
talk and the marking of stance. This chapter investigates the turn-opening slot
as an important locus for pragmatic marking. Tao’s (2003) work on turn-openings
concluded that turn-openers were primarily lexical and linked with
prior talk. McCarthy’s (2002) study of single-word lexical response tokens
revealed variation in the use of tokens between British and North American
English but that work did not cover turn-openers in general. The present chapter
compares turn-openers in informal Irish and British English, focusing on
lexically freestanding pragmatic markers. The chapter discusses variety-specific
items in their role as turn-initial pragmatic markers.
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Cited by
Cited by 3 other publications
Ní Mhurchú, Aoife
2018.
What’s Left to Say About Irish English Progressives? “I’m Not Going Having Any Conversation with You”.
Corpus Pragmatics 2:3
► pp. 289 ff.

VAUGHAN, ELAINE, MICHAEL MCCARTHY & BRIAN CLANCY
2017.
Vague category markers as turn‐final items in Irish English.
World Englishes 36:2
► pp. 208 ff.

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